Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’ Is the Subject of a New Book
Few classic albums in rock history have as famous a backstory as Fleetwood Mac's 1977 album, 'Rumours.' Ken Caillat, who co-produced the album with the band and Richard Dashut, has written a book, 'Making 'Rumours:' The Inside Story of the Classic Fleetwood Mac Album,' designed to clear up some of the, well, rumors about what took place during the sessions for the album.
"It’s been said by many, even including the band members, that they partied all of the time," he told Medleyville. "There was certainly no party that I’ve ever been to. In other words, the band is always saying that all they did was party, but they didn’t party that often. They just kept awake and kept on track through the daunting schedule that Fleetwood had to work under."
In writing the book, Caillat worked from his own journals and conducted 60-70 interviews with other people who were around at the time. He said that his research made him realize in retrospect that "a lot of the fights might have been caused by me when I asked the band members to sing the lyrics in front of the other members.”
So much of the longstanding appeal of 'Rumours' is the personal nature of the songs. Both of the band's internal couples - John and Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks - were splitting up, and drummer Mick Fleetwood was also having marital problems at the time. The band members were writing songs that reflected their issues.
Despite the turmoil of the sessions, Caillat has nothing but praise for the members of the band, calling Buckingham a "uniquely talented guitar player and creative musical genius" while saying keyboardist Christine McVie was a "great blues player" and the "powerful female force of the band."